College students who cheated on a simple task were more likely to want government jobs, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania found in a study of hundreds of students in Bangalore, India. Their results, recently released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggest that one of the contributing forces behind government corruption could be who gets into government work in the first place. For instance, “if people have the view that jobs in government are corrupt, people who are honest might not want to get into that system,” said Rema Hanna, an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Authorities say the killing on March 1, 1976, began after William Bradford Bishop Jr. learned he'd been passed over for a promotion at the State Department earlier in the day. Bishop, who had been receiving psychiatric care for depression and suffered from insomnia, grabbed a hammer and attacked his family, FBI officials say. When it was over, his wife Annette, mother Lobelia and three sons -- William Bradford III, 14, Brenton, 10, and Geoffrey, 5...

I keep reading about layoffs: Chrysler, J.C. Penney, Crown Books and more--but never any government agencies! Why not? Government produces nothing. All wealth is produced in the private sector by businessmen. Since each government job is supported by at least two private-sector households, government should eliminate at least one job for every two lost in the private sector. Otherwise, our economy will degenerate into a full-bore socialist state where everybody works for the government and nobody produces anything.

College students who cheated on a simple task were more likely to want government jobs, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania found in a study of hundreds of students in Bangalore, India. Their results, recently released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggest that one of the contributing forces behind government corruption could be who gets into government work in the first place. For instance, “if people have the view that jobs in government are corrupt, people who are honest might not want to get into that system,” said Rema Hanna, an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

This letter is in response to Don Hull's Feb. 5 letter regarding layoffs in the private sector but not in government. When government provides services it does so to provide for the general welfare, not for a profit or to promote socialism, as he alleges. Socialism, let us recall, is an economic system whose basic feature is that government owns the basic industries of a given society. With respect to layoffs, which jobs would he want eliminated in an economic downturn? Maybe we can eliminate firefighters, peace officers, sanitation workers or some of the clerical workers that keep services flowing to citizens like Mr. Hull.

More Americans are employed by government than at any previous time in the nation's history, a growth helped by a boom in jobs at prisons and jails, a Census Bureau report showed today. "Corrections is the fastest-growing segment" of government employment across the country, said Meredith De Hart, a social science analyst at the Census Bureau. Overall, employment of federal, state and local governments totaled a record 17.3 million people as of October, 1987. But while that represented an increase of 2.1% from 1986, employment in corrections jumped 9.5% to 425,000, the report said.

Hate your job? Out of work? Tired of scanning Monster.com for something better? Try cracking open the newest page-turner from the federal government: the 210-page "United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions." Inside what's more commonly known as the Plum Book, you'll find a listing of more than 7,000 top government jobs that are expected to open up with the presidential transition. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the leaders of the Senate committee that sponsored the book's publication, call it "essential reading for anyone interested in pursuing public service in the executive branch of government."

Vincent Chalk, the Irvine teacher who mde national headlines when he won the right to stay at the helm of his classroom while suffering from AIDS, died Tuesday. He was 45. Chalk died at St. Mary Medical Center about 5 a.m., said his friend and attorney, Marjorie Rushforth. He was admitted to the hospital Thursday and lapsed into a coma Saturday.

A schoolgirl set herself on fire and burned to death in the northern India city of Chandigarh in another violent protest against Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh's plan to reserve more government jobs for low-caste Hindus. The girl's death raised to nearly 100 the toll in protests that erupted after Singh's Aug. 7 announcement of a plan to dramatically increase the number of government jobs reserved for the lower castes.

The column expresses several unsupported allegations against the economics achieved by government units contracting certain services with the private sector. These opinions are not surprising from two college professors, who often express liberally slanted views on economics which need to be challenged. One paragraph states, "privatization does not even meet its short-term objectives of efficiency and cost effectiveness." I contend they would be hard-pressed to prove these allegations.

Nearly three-quarters of investors in a new survey say their confidence in the economy has been shaken by the government shutdown and threat of default. Most people have not made adjustments to their portfolios as a result of the political impasse in Washington. But the survey suggests a cautiousness among investors that could weigh on the economy and securities markets if the stalemate is not resolved quickly. Can't buy or sell a home due to government shutdown? Talk to the Times One in four investors think it is very likely the government will default on its debt, according to the poll by online brokerage TD Ameritrade.

WASHINGTON -- Private-sector hiring slowed last month as employers added 176,000 new jobs, but the gains were consistent with the labor market's steady though unspectacular growth over the last two years, payroll processing firm ADP said Thursday. Bolstering the view that the jobs situation remained positive, the Labor Department reported Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped by 9,000 last week to 323,000. That figure was near the Great Recession low of 322,000 reached in early August.

JERUSALEM - A new odd couple in Israeli politics has become the biggest obstacle to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's effort to form the next government. The surprise alliance between Yair Lapid, 49, the rising star of Tel Aviv's secular elite, and Naftali Bennett, 40, the yarmulke-wearing head of a religious-nationalist party, has added an unexpected wrinkle to coalition talks. Nearly a month after the election, Netanyahu has yet to announce a single partner, with a mid-March deadline looming.

Re "Smart spending isn't," Opinion, Feb. 5 Mostly I disagreed with former GOP Rep. Ron Paul, but he was right when he consistently pointed out that what the government subsidizes increases in price. And that, whether we like it or not, is "growth. " But Jonah Goldberg was right on the money when he wrote about increased education spending to prop up the economy. Government needs to throw money at infrastructure and at disaster relief, but how many more unemployed college graduates do we need before we realize that education needs to smarten up?

WASHINGTON - Fears of a recession seemed to evaporate as the nation added 157,000 net jobs last month and other key economic data improved, boosting major stocks to their highest level in more than five years. Economists and investors were heartened by the Labor Department's jobs report Friday, which suggested that growth accelerated at the end of last year. The new economic readings - a mix of federal and private data - contrasted with Wednesday's government report that the economy contracted at a 0.1% annual rate in the last three months of 2012.

February 1, 2013 | By Jim Puzzanghera, This post has been corrected, as indicated below.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy added 157,000 new jobs in January and the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%, the Labor Department said Friday. The job creation was below analyst expectations of 165,000 and down from a revised 195,000 in December. The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8% in December. The pace of job creation is consistent with moderate growth and could ease concerns that the economy's unexpected contraction in the final three months of last year was a sign another recession could be near.

I read all of "U.S. Payrolls Grow Solidly" (Aug. 6) before I came to the real punch line. The last sentence tells us that two-thirds of the total job growth during the Bush administration came from government jobs! Doesn't this administration claim to be in favor of smaller government? Richard Young Claremont

In most jobs, certainly in government jobs, an applicant, when hired, has to first spend a specified period of time in a probationary position, possibly six months. This allows the employer to check his/her performance under actual job conditions. Maybe our elected officials should have such a probationary period. Maybe if our mayors, council persons, even our President were hired under those conditions, campaign promises would be kept. JAMES GLEN Pacific Palisades

The private sector is slowly climbing its back way from the Great Recession, adding 155,000 jobs in December, but the public sector is continuing its long employment slide, making it the worst few years for government employees in recent memory. That's a conclusion from a new report by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the University of Albany, which calculates that while private-sector employment is down 3.1% from its peak in January 2008 and on the rebound, state and local government employment is down 3.4% from its peak in August 2008 and continuing to slide.

October 20, 2012 | By Marc Lifsher and Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times

SACRAMENTO - California's unemployment rate fell to 10.2% in September from 10.6% in August, posting one of the biggest drops of any state for the month. The decline took the rate to its lowest level since March 2009, during the worst recession in half a century. It follows the announcement of a reduction in the national unemployment rate to 7.8% in September from 8.1% the prior month. But the employment report released Friday has a less rosy side: The California Employment Development Department reported that only 8,500 net new payroll jobs were created statewide in September.